Head Of Innovation At Santander UK Speaks Out About Ripple And OnePayFX

OnePayFX is a mobile application born through a partnership between Santander, and international bank and Ripple. By utilising Ripple technology, Santander aim to change the way cross border payments are made on a mainstream level. Through an announcement of this partnership, both Ripple and Santander have cemented a strong future together, at the fore of blockchain technology. In short, this has confirmed that both Ripple and Santander will be working together for the long run.

Whilst the partnership only provides back end Ripple technology at the moment, many do dream that one day, Ripple XRP will also be integrated into this system, though, we are a long way off this just yet.

Recently, the Head of Innovation at Santander UK, Ed Metzger, has spoken to Pymnts.com in an interview, during which, Metzger discusses the future for Santander, Ripple and of course, the OnePayFX mobile app.

“Blockchain or distributed ledger technology covers a wide range of new technology approaches, but using some of the same building blocks and concepts [of other approaches]. The key is choosing the most appropriate of the different approaches and technologies with the particular problem being solved. Santander’s largest markets by profits are Brazil, Spain and U.K. We expect to roll the service out across more countries in the coming months.”

One stand out point from Metzgers comments here are that Santander wish to expand the operations of OnePayFX. As it stands the application is only available in the UK, Brazil and Poland, therefore, with this in mind we can expect to see OnePayFX roll out in other countries within which Santander operate as a bank and financial institution.

These countries include: Australia, Chile, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, South Korea, Singapore, Spain and the USA. As stated, with Spain giving Santander one of its largest market profits we can assume that Spain will be added next, followed by a number of other countries as listed above.

We must note that this only refers to where the app is available, overall, OnePayFX can be used from these countries to send money to a number of other countries and thus, the receiving accounts do not need to be based within the aforementioned countries.

As OnePayFX grows, so will the use of Ripples services and of course, so will Ripples reputation within the blockchain. As it continues, we should expect to see more and more banks adopt this technology. One day, the ultimate goal of Ripple XRP listing may even become a reality.